Finding Your Confidence by Ashlee Renz-Hotz
15 November 2017 · 1 min read
The Create50 community imparts something incredibly valuable to its writers – almost like finding gold at the end of a rainbow.
Not only does it instill a sense of accomplishment, bringing an urgency to write, but also through the writer feedback, it helps impart a sense of confidence in your own work.
The collaboration and community you feel is nothing short of amazing.
I was really excited about the possibility of Singularity50, as science fiction is one of my preferred genres. Like many, I sometimes suffer from a debilitating fear of putting myself out there with my writing. It feels more personal, exposing, than anything else I explore creatively.
The feedback I received from my Singularity50 entry, Seeds, not only made the writing better, it boosted my conviction enough to push me further along my path. I turned the story into a short film script, which has gone on to place in both the 2017 Screencraft and Austin Film Festival competitions. The film is on its way to getting made and alerted a German director to my work. We are now co-writing a feature film together. I’ve been encouraged to continue exploring the Seeds world and create a novel around it.
All of this windfall from a little short story and a community of dedicated writers. Sometimes an artist just needs that one little push, that one thing that raises you up to find your stride.
Create50 has given me that with my writing. I will always be grateful, and it is an honor to be among a group of such talented people.
Ashlee Renz-Hotz
Written by
Chris JonesPassionate about all things film, I have spent my life watching movies, making movies and helping others make their movies too. Most recently I have been directing Splinter Unit on 'Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning', parts 1 and 2 for Paramount. I also executive-produced 'The Enfield Poltergeist' for Apple TV+. Deeper into my past, my early major projects include action thriller 'The Runner', serial killer thriller 'White Angel' and paranormal horror 'Urban Ghost Story'. I co-created and authored The Guerilla Film Makers Handbook series, published by Bloomsbury. There are now eight books in the series. More recently I have run a series of London-based festivals, kicking off with the London Screenwriters Festival which attracts over 1,000 professional screenwriters from around the globe annually. I also set up and run TEDxEaling, an annual TEDx conference on storytelling and human communication. In 2009, I made the multi-award-winning and Oscar-shortlisted 'Gone Fishing', the whole process being heavily documented on my blog. In 2014 I completed my fourth feature film, the crowd-created 50 Kisses which entered the Guinness Book Of Records for most screenwriters on a feature film. Following this success, I founded Create50 to continue the idea of crowd-created projects. Twisted50, our first book, was published on Halloween 2016 and immediately toppled Stephen King from the top spot on Amazon. Five books have followed in the Twisted50 series and we are working on the sixth now. During the summer of 2016 I trained to become a master Firewalk instructor and now regularly take people across the hot coals for charity. Late 2017 I directed the short film 'Seeing Him' which collected a ton of awards too. Over the following years I continued to make award-winning shorts, such as Meet The Nativity and Never Too Late. In the summer of 2022 I premiered Impact 50, the second feature-length movie from Create50. This time I directed the segment at the start of the film, with Olivia Williams as the President, and written by Joe Eszterhas. In the summer of 2022, I also joined the Mission: Impossible 7 and 8 productions as Splinter Unit director. At Halloween 2023, the Apple TV+ show that I co-executive-produced, 'The Enfield Poltergeist', premiered. I run regular filmmaking workshops for filmmakers both online and in person. Some people ask how I began making films? Like most filmmakers of my generation, it was with a Super 8mm camera, summertime and school friends, usually after watching a behind-the-scenes TV programme on a Hollywood movie like Star Wars. My first film was a zombie horror called Necronomicon, heavily influenced by John Carpenter's The Fog. And I was hooked for life. Contact me at Ealing Film Studios, Ealing Green, London, W5 5EP, UK
